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The Week in Quotes (Dec. 2 – 8)

Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes culled from news reports from across Texas, and beyond.

C. Ed Massey, president of National School Boards Association, in a letter supporting a lawsuit against Louisiana’s taxpayer-funded private school voucher scheme. A state judge ruled the voucher scheme unconstitutional on Friday.

It is clear this law was not created with the best interest of all children in mind; instead it promotes a narrow political agenda and will harm community public schools that serve the best interest of all children. It also deprives the public schools of valuable resources that are necessary to carry out the mandate to provide a free and appropriate public education.

Mat Staver, head of the far-right litigation group Liberty Counsel, using what sounds suspiciously like the argument used by supporters of abortion rights, in opposing California’s ban on conversion therapy.

If [lawmakers] really think this kind of therapy causes harm, why would they want to push them toward unlicensed practitioners?

Robert Green Ingersoll, a champion of reason and secular government in American history.

They (The Founders) knew that to put God in the Constitution was to put man out. They knew that the recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought.

Religious-right group One Million Moms, urging Christians to boycott JC Penney because talk show host and lesbian Ellen DeGeneres appears in a Christmas TV ad for the retailer.

Since April, JC Penney’s has not aired Ellen DeGeneres in one of their commercials until now. A new JCP ad features Ellen and three elves. JCP has made their choice to offend a huge majority of their customers again. Christians must now vote with their wallets.

My wife, a College of William and Mary graduate, taught in Louisiana public schools for two years.
In New Orleans. No books, no educated teachers, no supplies, no lesson plans,no learning………………no graduates. the flip side? Bible school kids from better off white families,misinformed and miseducated by creationists so that their brains are turned into blocks of cement.
heck of a deal for everyone.Rick Perry wants some of that for Texas, boy howdy.Then everyone will be like him.

1) Louisiana bigots lose another golden opportunity to “civilize” their grasshut negroes by matriculating them through Bible-believing private schools that are guaranteed to chase the African juju out of their lives, whiten them up, and give them a 30 ACT score. What a bunch of idiots.

2) Unlicensed practitioners? He must mean the local fundie church “pasters.” Have you met the new “paster” down at our church?

3) Robert Ingersoll simply agrees, rightly, that a civil religion, which is almost always practiced with a mindless “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah—now let’s get on with the meeting” is taking the Lord’s name in vain—and institutionalizing it. Much better venues than governments exist so people can worship in spirit and in truth.

4) I find it comforting that a man wants to keep his own personal adjective in play as a noun.

5) I did not know that that homosexuality is contagious and is spread by advertising. In addition, I did not know that the 11th Commandment is “Thou shalt not hire a gay person to advertise.” I know. I know. We are supposed to kill them. But, but, but—Do we kill them before we hire them to do advertising or after we hire them to do advertising? Can someone clarify that?